Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Milford

The Revelation 12:1-12 [NLTse]
Then I witnessed in Heaven an event of great significance. I saw a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon beneath her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her head. ² She was pregnant, and she cried out because of her labor pains and the agony of giving birth.
³ Then I witnessed in heaven another significant event. I saw a large red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, with seven crowns on his heads. ⁴ His tail swept away one-third of the stars in the sky, and he threw them to the earth. He stood in front of the woman as she was about to give birth, ready to devour her Baby as soon as it was born.
⁵ She gave birth to a Son Who was to rule all nations with an iron rod. And her Child was snatched away from the dragon and was caught up to God and to His throne. ⁶ And the woman fled into the wilderness, where God had prepared a place to care for her for 1,260 days.
⁷ Then there was war in Heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and his angels. ⁸ And the dragon lost the battle, and he and his angels were forced out of heaven. ⁹ This great dragon—the ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world—was thrown down to the earth with all his angels.
¹⁰ Then I heard a loud voice shouting across the heavens,
“It has come at last—salvation and power and the Kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down to earth—the one who accuses them before our God day and night. ¹¹ And they have defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by their testimony. And they did not love their lives so much that they were afraid to die. ¹² Therefore, rejoice, O heavens! And you who live in the heavens, rejoice! But terror will come on the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you in great anger, knowing that he has little time.”

Sermon
This is a very sketchy memory, but let me try to share it with you. My family and I were living next door in the Manse and I remember waking up in the early morning hours – it was, perhaps, three or four o’clock – and I woke feeling terrified. Opening my eyes I remember seeing a man standing in the far corner of our bedroom, just standing there looking at me. He was dressed in a dark suit over a white shirt with a dark tie on. He had dark brown hair parted on the side and, to my eyes, he looked kind of like me. But I knew I was seeing the devil.

I’ve never before been so afraid that I couldn’t move, couldn’t even open my mouth to speak, but that’s how I was in that moment. I thought I was going to burst from the terror quaking inside of me! (I guess that’s what it’s like when people say they were “paralyzed with fear”.)

Lying there frozen, helpless, all I knew was that I needed Jesus. But I couldn’t open my mouth to speak! So I cried out to Him in my mind, so afraid, so desperate, as I stared at this very normal-looking but terrifying-to-my-soul figure across my room. And as I thought of the Savior and called out to Him in my mind my jaws and lips got a little bit of movement and I remember mumbling, “Jesus, Jesus,” and then being able to speak freely, “Jesus, Jesus, please help me,” or something like that. The next thing I knew the well-dressed me-looking man – the devil – was gone…

Some days ago I received the following email from a lady in our congregation:

I believe that Satan has planned the destruction of the work that the Lord has for this church and community… He always does this by attacking from within…

We always have a hard time recognizing who the enemy is, and attack each other instead of uniting and fighting the real enemy. We lick our wounds and walk or run away from the battle instead of holding together where we are strongest: In prayer and love together.

I was thinking about how the Roman army used to fight. They would form a “turtle”, each one covered by the shield of the others so that no weapon could penetrate the armor; each dependent on their training and each other for protection. Surely this is what God intends for us to do as believers. We cover each other, not just ourselves. No weapon that is formed against us shall prosper. We forget that we are one body, fit together for the purposes of God, and when we stand together the gates of hell shall not and can-not prevail.

This is the word of the Lord and it rings true and sound in our hearts: We are here to lift up Christ, and the message He sent us to proclaim, not our own feelings, desires, and agenda. We have been so conditioned to asserting our rights in this world of selfish, prideful greed that we do not always remember what He has saved us from, or the purpose He has for His body.

I believe that Satan has planned the destruction of the work that the Lord has for this church and community…

And then yesterday I received an early-morning phone call from one of you who had had an awful dream about me that you needed to share: That you’d seen me across a room from you, talking to a big man. We were passing a clipboard between us, so you thought we might be doing some business together. But you said that you saw letters behind the man that suddenly spelled out ANTICHRIST!

Add to all this that lately different ones of you have been sharing with me about evil situations you’ve been in and evil times you’ve been going through. (Your words, not mine.) So when earlier this week another person told me that they hoped I would preach about Satan sometime soon, my response inside was, “Do ya think?”

The Bible gives us a clear portrait of who Satan is and how he affects our lives. Put simply, the Bible defines Satan as an angelic being who fell from his position in heaven due to sin and is now completely opposed to God, doing all in his power to thwart God’s purposes.

Ezekiel 28:12-14 seems to be describing Satan as having been created one of the cherubim – apparently the highest created angel – and of being first among them. Satan does not look like the cartoon character in the red suit with a tail and horns and a pitchfork. In their heavenly state according to the Bible, cherubim are creatures up to 18 feet tall with 8 foot-long wings. In the prophet Ezekiel’s vision (1:10; 10:1-14) the cherubim had four wings, and under their wings were human-like hands that could be used to carry things. All the surfaces of the cherubim, including the wings, were covered with eyes. Each cherub had four faces, “the first was the face of an ox, the second was a human face, the third was the face of a lion, and the fourth was the face of an eagle.” The New Testament book of Revelation describes similar creatures, only with six wings each, with faces of a lion, an ox, a man, and an eagle. So, these creatures look nothing like the cute little cherubim you can buy for your garden or bookshelf.

The prophet Isaiah (14:12) possibly gives Satan’s pre-fall name as Lucifer, describing him as being “perfect in beauty,” and adorned with all kinds of precious stones. He wanted to receive the worship due to God alone.

Satan convinced one third of the angels to rebel against God. So Michael, one of God’s archangels, fought with God’s warrior-angels against Satan and his “fallen” ones, with Satan losing the battle and being cast with his angels-now-demons from Heaven down to earth, where he took on the form of a snake in the Garden of Eden to tempt Adam and Eve. (So, apparently, he can take on the forms of other creatures, as well.)
That being said, and with such fearsome grandeur described, let’s be clear that Satan is not God’s opposite, equal, or counterpart – he is not the yin to God’s yang, the darkness to God’s light, the evil to God’s goodness – as he is often portrayed. No. Satan is a created being. His defeat is described in the short and sweet words of The Revelation where, after deceiving everybody on the earth to turn against Christians, the Bible says, “But fire from Heaven came down on the attacking armies and consumed them. Then the devil, who had deceived them, was thrown into the Fiery Lake of Burning Sulfur… tormented day and night forever and ever!” (20:7-10) Big build up; no contest.

Clearly Satan’s no match for God, but what about us? Is the devil more powerful than we are? Should we be afraid of him?

I’ll answer that by saying, if by “we” you mean human beings, then, yes, Satan is more powerful than human beings because Satan is the king over human beings; he is the king of this world and his is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. (Ephesians 2:1-3) But in his letter to the Colossians the apostle Paul makes clear that on account of our faith and trust in Christ that Christians have been “rescued from the kingdom of darkness and transferred into the Kingdom of His dear Son.” (1:13)

Now it is God’s Spirit – the Spirit of Christ – that lives in our hearts! So if by “we” you mean Christians, then, no, in Christ the devil is no longer more powerful than us, and although we need to be aware of him we no longer need to ever be afraid of him.

We’re going to talk about this more next Sunday, but since myself, the church, and several of you seem to be object of Satan’s attention right now, let me end by sharing what I hope are a few practical things. First, remember that Satan is a deceiver, a slanderer, and an accuser and that his only power over Christians is when we believe his deceptions, his put-downs, and his accusations.

As I mentioned earlier, Satan’s single-minded intent is to thwart God’s purposes in the world, and, of course, God’s purposes in the world are to bring people to Himself through faith in Jesus. The devil does that by attempting to nurture doubt in us; getting us to question God’s Word and God’s goodness. (DOUBT) He does that by discouraging us; having us look more at our problems than looking to God. (DISCOURAGEMENT) He seeks to draw us from faith by having us question God’s promises, our salvation in Christ, and by making us feel like such failures that we give up and stop trying. (DEFEAT) And if none of these other tactics will work, he will tempt us to delay, so that we’ll put off doing the good God wants done in the hope that it never gets done. (DELAY)

So, first and foremost we must take the threat of spiritual attack seriously. 1) Our main defense is prayer, routinely asking God to protect us from the evil one and to help and strengthen us. 2) We need to be in the Bible to recognize Satan’s style and tactics and so that we can know God’s truth from the devil’s deceptions. 3) We need to believe what we read in the Scriptures and put it into practice in our daily lives. 4) Christian fellowship is of the utmost importance so that – like described in that email – we can live out this koinonia-life we’ve been saved into: Protecting one another in our prayers and God’s truth, and helping one another in our times of weakness. (Again, we’ll look at all this more closely next Sunday.)

Satan probably likes this depiction of him, since most people (including many Christians) are then apt to disbelieve in his existence. And when he is a “non-existent” force in people’s lives, Satan is then free to influence them without being discovered as the cause of many or any of their problems. However, the Bible says that Satan is a beautiful and powerful fallen angel, who would like to do nothing more than take away the joy of Christians through deception, and lead people into rebellion against God. Although Satan is destined for the Fiery Lake of Burning Sulfur, the Bible also makes clear that he will deceive entire nations and kingdoms before his final end comes.
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So, “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that your family of believers all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering you are.” (1 Peter 5:8-9) Yes, “Humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7)